


Kiss With A Fist

by Shatteeran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aye Aye Aye, Certainly not smutty, First Kiss, M/M, Not really angsty either, Romantic Face Punching, The Author Has Issues, The Author Regrets Everything, Touch-Starved, introspective as fuck, not really fluffy, sigh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: A kiss with a fist is better than none.





	Kiss With A Fist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LI0NH34RT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LI0NH34RT/gifts).



> Oh-kay...
> 
> Initially prompted as a fun bit about Theo making sure he gets punched any chance he gets because he wrongfully believes he's got it as good as it gets (gets gets gets). Then morphed into a bit about getting a kiss when one expects a fist, and the entire universes that fit in the in-between. THEN - because I'm a sucker for pain - I made it a dumb-ass challenge to dump as many words as I could on a 5-second garbage of a plot.
> 
> I want to say it wasn't fun. I want to say I'm sorry. But I had fun. And I'm not.  
> My world is on fire all the time. If you, poor reader that fell in this hellhole of a work, agreed to share my weird view of it for a couple of minutes, I'm glad you stayed and I hope you enjoyed getting to know me.
> 
> I strongly advise listening to this: https://open.spotify.com/track/6rtYytlo88Z8ve1trQ5Usf?si=pyBYTTjsRVSwO5dJyOLgaQ while reading, but I mean... you're already here against my better advice, so feel free to ignore that, too. ;-)
> 
> Janna, this work is for you (of that, I'm sorry).  
> Because you gave birth to the idea.  
> Because you nursed it until it was ready to have its own life on AO3.  
> Because you gave it a name.  
> It's your work, in a way (I'm so sorry... >_<).  
> Also, because you take all the dumb prompts I spew about them kissing and turn them into art.  
> This is my attempt at paying my debts.  
> We can't all be lions...

“Now what?”

Theo asked the question like he would have cracked a whip. And just as well, he recognized in Liam’s posture the announcement of the inevitable punch. The slight withdrawal of his upper body as he gathered momentum always betrayed the werewolf’s first pounce in the fight. The chimera had learnt the tell a couple of months ago in the dingy bathroom of the Beacon Hills police station. Before Liam’s knuckles had crashed against his jaw, the younger teen had menaced Theo with a beating on more than one occasion. Interestingly enough, Liam’s threats, though always backed with posturing and aggressiveness, never preceded actual blows: his whole balance shifted forward, pulled by his anger, right up in the face of his opponent; but his feet remained firmly grounded on the floor, testimonies of his self-control, of his will to find a non-violent conclusion to a disagreement.

That day, amidst the chaos created by the Anuk-Ite, fueled by Liam’s mourning at Brett’s passing, Theo had first discovered what Liam looked like when his furor escaped his body to transform into fists and claws. He might not have found it beautiful then; maybe his appreciation for the kid’s form came after, once the rough contact got charged with another meaning. But if he were to be honest with himself, Theo would have acknowledged his arousal at the display of strength. The traitor to the McCall Pack did not believe for one second in another turn of events if he had. But still, entertaining the idea in the privacy of his truck brought him comfort when he prepared himself for yet another cold and interrupted night of nightmare-ridden sleep.

Even now, as it always did when Liam’s finger formed a fist to land the first hit, the werewolf’s body retreated slightly. Theo watched Liam’s leg muscles flex as his weight moved to lie on his heels. Eyes wide to take the whole sight in, Theo drank as many details as his supernatural retinas allowed, images to fuel his fantasies later on with the darker side of the moon as an accomplice, information to optimize his own response to the punch when it would land. Theo had more than enough time to duck. To block. To dodge and devise a counter-attack and spill the first blood in one swift move. Just as his training suggested myriads of possible fighting scenarios he trusted his body to instantly assume the correct stances for, Theo knew he wouldn’t bulge.

Liam’s fist would mar his face with knuckle prints. And Theo would let it happen. Time and time again. He probably wouldn’t have when Liam first broke his nose and left him bleeding against the restroom’s white-tiled wall. But until then, the kid with IED had never laid a hand on him; the sudden action had taken him by surprise. A happy mistake, Theo firmly believed, because without this primary occurrence, he would have never seen the depth of Liam’s intent in his blue eyes. He would have never let himself drown in the powerful stare.

Fierce, soul-stripping and entirely focused on Theo, much like the azure orbs glaring at him presently in the beta’s bedroom, Liam’s gaze narrowed down to the boy’s goal, to the patch of skin on Theo’s cheek that the materialized anger selected as their first point of contact. Liam’s face showed many expressions, Theo thought whenever Liam wasn’t paying attention to him, but none of the ones directed at him offered such a raw, wave-slapping, emotion as the raging desire he was currently witnessing. Sure, the werewolf’s instinct urged him to cause pain, to seek domination through force and injury rather than to dispense affection, to provide comfort through tenderness and warmth. But estranged, packless, chimeras couldn’t be choosers, and as far as Theo was concerned, this acknowledgment of the bond he shared with the beta was enough. It had to be. The – selfish, reckless, starving – coyote in him indulged in glancing back, letting their eyes meet for a second. A shudder ran down his back; his lungs expanded with contented approval as he spotted the foretelling gold specks of the werewolf’s shift. This one would hurt…

Above Liam’s head, his forearm brushed against spiky strands of his brown hair, a clear sign that the arm would soon start its accelerated descent back towards the chimera’s face, timely alerting Theo to close his eyelids and start bracing for impact… But Theo tempted fate since the triple punch at the zoo. He prided himself in his skills with reason, and though their plan to distract Monroe’s troops had viciously backfired, he himself had gotten a lot better at timing Liam’s hits. How could he avert his eyes and miss the bounce of Liam’s hair as the spiky lighter streaks caught the sunlight and played with it before softly rejoining their position? How could he not fight his reflex to protect his sight when the teenager’s t-shirt pulled taunt over his pectorals, when the cloth got trapped around his growing bicep, when the movement revealed a sliver of tanned pink around his navel?

The younger boy’s breath hitched. Theo closed his eyes. The punch would arrive fast now. Besides, self-consciousness had never befell Liam, which in turn had provided Theo with multiple opportunities for enough awareness for the both of them. Unlike for other evolutions of his relationship with Liam, the chimera could pinpoint the exact moment he had stopped observing the beta’s silhouette to assess his strengths and weaknesses. Theo would never say it out loud, but he had started to examine Liam for his own enjoyment a couple of minutes only after he had uttered: “Why do I get the feeling this kid is tougher than he looks?”

Yes, the afternoon show radiated more than the boy’s good looks. And by giving up on one of his senses, Theo could concentrate on his attacker’s exhale. Low. Drawn-out. Raspier towards its end as Liam generally ran out of air or patience. He wasn’t always graced with the throaty shout right before the fingers collided with his cheekbones. But the few times he was made up for all the healing marks he had otherwise received. Theo had spent hours cataloguing the sound, replaying it in his mind at louder volumes, morphing it into screams of surprised bliss, and other times, tuning it down to a whisper, a reluctant confession of overwhelming sensations. Of returned feelings. Over the course of their alliance, Theo had often convinced Liam to spar with him: although Liam’s – and his Pack’s – benefit purely motivated his suggestion, he would indirectly accept payment for his good deed in the form of more material for his private Liam soundboard. And Liam groaned and panted and growled during their work out sessions as expected, but never did it hold the same abandon, the same impending climax of the shock between their bones.

And thus Theo would relish their actual fights twice as much as their make-believe sparring. The irony of his addiction for authenticity was unfortunately not lost on him. In his defense, Liam smelled wrong when they trained. He smelled good – he always smelled good to Theo. But nowhere near as good as when his anger got the better of him. Nowhere near as dizzying as he smelled right now, the scent of his anger like a Summer thunderstorm about to break overpowering his usual one, imbued in every corner of his bedroom. Nowhere near as enveloping and warm as the promise of the after, once Liam’s rightful irritation would have been dispersed and seared in Theo’s flesh, when calm and mutual respect – and hopefully admiration – and an inkling similar to companionship returned to them. The chimera would nest in that smell, manufacture bottles of the homey sensation; but as everything else that ever got good in his life, it only lasted but a moment.

There would be time later, when Theo would inevitably return to his absence of a life in the Beacon Hills sewers, to despair about lost paradises. For now, Theo relished in the surge of tension filling up the small room bathed in the afternoon light behind his eyelids. He allowed his heart to soar as the burning intensity climbed up the goosebumps on his limbs. He let himself be soothed by the cool caress of the air generated by the speed of Liam’s fist on his cheek, reddened by their earlier argument. The heated smell of dust behind floating curtains reached his nostrils, a pleasant aftertaste to his own prelude to pain for pleasure.

Liam’s knuckles would incessantly reach their final destination. And in that split second when the boy’s fingers would brush his skin, Theo would accept his love for Liam. His whole world reduced to that singular point of warmth and softness on him, he would embrace the submerging entirety of his feelings and bask in his wild surrender. He would play pretend that the touch means to Liam what the blow means to him. 

The gallons of tears and blood he spilled into fighting his new-found obsession never mattered. From the moment he had looked up at a fuming Liam from the tiled-floor of the restrooms, had taken in his fist still fully formed, the speckles of his own blood on the back of Liam’s hand, Theo’s fate had been sealed. Cursed to willingly follow the beta around, to play the parts – all of them – the boy would judge fit, would request of him, would subconsciously need him to fill, to scrap the bottom of the kid’s anger for bits and pieces of affection. Theo couldn’t even have told to save his life what Liam and he were even fighting for. As long as Liam snapped, as long as his upper-body retreated slightly backwards and prepared for a punch, he had won. And he had stopped counting his victories weeks ago.

The chimera could almost feel the body heat of the hand coming closer to his cheek. He tilted his face towards the blow to avoid dislocating his jaw. Anticipating the searing pain, he tensed.

Twenty-six times Theo had lied to himself, imagining for a brief instant a world in which he deserved to be loved, in which Liam would gather him in his arms and teach him how to sail in his loving blue gaze. And while he cared little for the actual hit, he knew he would that night and the day after take comfort in the sore stretch of his skin. He would bear on his face the reminder of an entire universe found and lost in a spark of a burning azure light for the following hours. He would harbor Liam’s imprint on his body with pride… until the memory would fade, and he would run to Liam again, his heart begging to start yet another fight. 

Finally, Liam’s fingers touched Theo’s face.

 

* * *

  

“Now what?” 

Bracing himself to deliver the expected blow, Liam found himself irked by the familiar movement. A feeling of wrongness spread through his nerves and contaminated his mind. As he pulled back to earn momentum and give Theo the punch he deserved, he couldn’t help but wonder, exactly, what the chimera had done to merit the intended punishment. Sure, Liam argued with Theo constantly – or, more accurately, regularly. Most of these fights, if not all, were actually started by their former enemy. And much like the one that he had started earlier in his truck, their arguments did not seem to hold any point nor substance. For all intents and purposes, they fought for anger’s sake.

Liam brushed past his ear and the beta quickly assessed his frenemy’s taunting smirk, proud to have once more successfully pushed his buttons. The werewolf made sure to band his arm as much as he could: he’d give his tormentor what he wanted. Deep down, the kid with IED had accepted these mock-up battles as part of their routine. Scott’s strategies to control the wolf relied on his Alpha bottling down his frustrations; his beta’s diagnosis rendered him incapable of that. Over the years, and with the underrated help of Theo, Liam had developed his own way to keep himself in check, through channels and outlets. If it meant letting the violence and aggression run wild in a safe environment every once in a while, it seemed Theo and himself were at peace with it…

Except Liam’s anger had yet to fully blow up. While he held his breath and prepared to exhale on his attack as they had trained him to, he found himself in total control of his thoughts and emotions. Theo had not provoked him to help him let off steam. Liam did not need a medium for his rage at the moment. Another thought went on to nag him. If the werewolf was currently following their exercises to the letter – which Theo’s own projected self-confidence seem to confirm –, why was the chimera not evading his blows, as he would so easily during their practice fights? And, under the far-fetched assumption that Theo never saw the first punch coming, what should Liam make of the happenstances in which a second hit had followed the first? Had his sparring partner be too stunned to react and protect his face then?

Liam’s fist began its sped-up course towards Theo’s face, while the younger boy searched the other’s eyes for an answer. Of course, the chimera caught his stare, but he quickly shut his lids, giving Liam very little time to process the earnestness he had seen in the cloudy gaze. Theo expected the punch, Liam decided. But he also wanted it, calling for the pain crashing on his cheekbone, in a way Liam could not comprehend. For yet another time, the Dunbar teen wished he could shield Theo from the hurt. No longer foreign but still strange in his mind, the idea had been rationalized in his mind as a means to offer Theo an actual second chance at life: being good came a lot easier to those who evolved in a safe, secure and loving environment. As much as he wanted those things for the reformed villain, Liam also did not know how to provide them nor how to present them to their ally. Ultimately, he reasoned, he had conjured an awful lot of excuses to stand still and stay silent.

Everything in Theo’s posture betrayed his anticipation of the upcoming pain. Arched legs clad in the trademark washed-up jeans and feet firmly planted on Liam’s carpet to maintain his balance, the chimera’s hands clenched around the twisted of the blood red hoodie he had removed at the beginning of their fight, leaving his muscly arms bared and bulging under the strain. Beneath his plan dark grey shirt, Liam could make out the lines of contracted abdominals, solicited to receive the blow with minimal chance of falling. 

On Theo’s face, his scruff did not fully hide the stressed-out tick in his jaw. Liam’s momentum took him forward and he balanced himself with his supporting foot. His gaze refocused on Theo’s expression as his own knuckles began to invade his visual field. The older boy’s eyelids were peacefully shut over his button-up nose, his lips stretched into the hint of a contented smile where Liam had imagined them pinched and worried. The feeling of wrongness now permeating over the whole bedroom started to sicken the boy.

Liam began questioning his own action: what prompted him to hit his friend, if none of his usual reasons applied? What could Theo possibly get out of it? Slowing his fist upon his newest epiphany, he allowed himself to fully encompass the person standing in front of him: from his shady past to his unwavering presence, from his perfect body to his broken soul, from his most frustrating flaws to his best hidden virtues… Liam had no desire to beat Theo Raeken. Unbeknownst to the chimera, Liam unclenched his fist to reveal a sweaty palm. His wrist pivoted to fit against Theo’s cheek and avoid a full force slap.

A full shiver danced on the boy’s skin, breaking over his skin in goosebumps. Liam watched as the hairs on Theo’s arms raised, in what could have been misconstrued as a display of fright or aggression, if a shuddery sigh hadn’t escaped Theo’s mouth. The beta felt his own breath falter in response, positively finishing to ruin his form. Wide-eyed over a feeling which superseded the most destructive of his furors, the werewolf stood, dumbstruck and hand raised towards his anchor, an ache to complete his movement forming and growing painfully in his chest. Failing to put a name on the emotion aggression had been a substitute for, his mind cluttered with shards of insignificant glances and half-truths, Liam felt the panic peal at his patience as the urge to lay his hand on Theo’s warm skin burned his fingertips.

Then Theo tilted his head, most probably in an attempt to soften the blow, but Liam’s wolf fixated on that patch of neck the chimera had unknowingly presented to rapt blue eyes. The younger boy couldn’t help himself but interpret the gesture, even so small, so submissive and unlike Theo, as a symbol of absolute trust, acceptation and… 

Liam’s brain surrendered, too, leaving his body in charge with his next decision. The boy closed his eyes.

 

* * *

  

Where Liam’s knuckles usually landed tender then roughed up outwards from his cheekbone to his chin, Theo felt the timid pads of the younger boy’s fingertips poke his scruffy jaw before they caressed inwards towards his neck, far behind until they settled on his nape. They pulled a little bit at his sensitive shorter hair there, in a move so typically and possessively Liam that the chimera’s mild surprise softened: maybe the beta was mixing it up a little, maybe he would hit with his other fist. And sure enough, through half-open eyelids, Theo perceived the blur of another hand flying towards his face. His eyes shut close once more.

But instead of a fist, another sweaty palm slid against his skin. Liam’s fingers did not venture as far, as it seemed the second hand primarily aimed at supporting Theo’s head, now openly tilted towards his right shoulder. Finding purchase on his neck and behind his right ear, the werewolf pulled Theo’s face towards him, easily catching the experienced fighter off guard as he had expected to lose his balance in all direction but forward, and as easily catching him against his chest, as Theo’s splayed hands reflexively landed on his pectorals for support.

Then Liam’s lips caught his own and Theo’s world exploded. Myriads of information assailed his mind when his eyes flickered open, desperate to understand what his other senses were shouting at him: the moist tremor of his upper lip trapped between Liam’s. The addictive scent of lightning streaking a starry night sky, resonating around their bodies. The searing heat wherever they collided: three fingers on his nape, one behind his hear, one on his collarbone, a bicep against his forearm, a warm chest under his hands, a wrist against his own breast, four fingers pressing against his neck and a thumb caressing his cheek. His toes, constantly curling and unfurling in his shoes, whose soles scratched furiously against the Geyer’s carpet. Liam’s sun-kissed eyelids, squeezed shut, yet from which surprise and elation seemed to spill through. The weird press of their noses, locked in an Eskimo kiss of their own, as their owners fumbled to get closer and closer. The painful tear of his nape hair, so welcomingly searing that it immediately reached the top spot in Theo’s personal classification. The burnt smell of the dust particles shaping an eerie glow around Liam’s spiky head.  

Yet none of those sensations began to compare with the tidal wave of feelings breaking against carefully-built barriers. The shock of receiving unexpected pleasure when pain was due quickly leaving place to a genuine joy, similar to the one he felt watching the sun rays break through a cloudy maze, with an added spiced twist in his guts he guessed never graced those who got lost staring at landscapes. A pain-fueled pleasure infusing the original contentment as Liam’s grasp on his hair tightened; a renewed warmth developing in his lower belly at the discovery of being wanted. In this way. By Liam. The clumsy awkwardness of novelty expertly intertwined with the continuous revelation of the absence of failure to rush through his head and leave him boneless, uncertain of everything but what his own body seemed to have always known. The desire for another dose, another moment, hooked with vengeful teeth around his heart, with the fear of being denied tearing through his stomach. And to top it all, flying with his mind above all the jumbled words in his head, the inconceivable symbolic of what the kiss might mean to Liam, this time, too, filling his heart with so much love he did not know whether he was supposed to burst out of his ribcage or to start floating, pulling the rest of his body along, levitating with Liam higher, and higher, towards a thousand suns.

Then Liam’s lip moved imperceptibly against his. And suddenly Theo was back on the ground, scratching the carpet with his shoes, gasping for air, consuming himself on the bright-shining flame of the younger boy, who gathered him from his billion-mile-long fall in his arms. And it all started again. And again. And again… 

When Liam gently pushed him away barely a second later, Theo staggered back and immediately proceeded to doubt all the truths he had been so convinced about in the safety of Liam’s embrace. Eventually he took in the sight of the boy he loved. Theo had artfully mussed up Liam’s spiky hair, still crowned with the late afternoon light. The heated hue on his cheeks had not been caused by anger or exercise. More importantly, his blue eyes focused on Theo and only on Theo, with an intensity and a kindness he had never experienced directed at him. And Liam’s bashful, blinding, communicative smile was making so many silent promises that Theo only registered the provocative, uttered words a bit later:

“Now what?”

**Author's Note:**

> Now what?


End file.
